The Scream
by goldieasj
Summary: A short story about unexpected tragedy. Beware - you may be drawn in!


**THE SCREAM**

**by Goldie**

The scream was what Hannibal Heyes knew he would never forget.

Although he was fairly successful at first, having other more important tasks at hand. But minutes later, seconds really, the scream once again played itself in his mind. It reverberated in his head, bouncing and echoing and traveling through his entire being. As early as that, he knew he would never be able to forget it.

But, Heyes knew, life goes on. He had heard someone say that once, no one important. Joe Briggs the hired gun, he thought. But it was true. Life goes on. When something like this happens, you have to pull yourself together and push on.

Heyes picked up his hat and momentarily forced himself to marvel at how clean it was. Then it came back again – the echo of the scream. He put the hat on his head and then covered his ears with his hands. But the scream persisted.

He waited until it died down in his head before doing anything. All that was left for him now was to walk out of there, leading his horse and Kid Curry's with its precious cargo. He did just that. Seconds later he turned around to look at his partner. Tears filled his eyes as the scream filled his head. Heyes hoped, without believing, that some day he would stop hearing it. He did not feel strong enough to bear it much longer. It had been a tragic day.

A tear filtered down his face. Ashamed of his weakness, ashamed of the scream, he brushed his face with his muddy coat sleeve.

Life must go on.

* * *

Instinctively they had figured the river was less than a mile away. The scenery was attractive so they decided the best way north was to follow the river near the east bank. There had been a great deal of rain lately, and, in fact, rain clouds were forming again. Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry did not mind riding in the rain normally, but the preponderance of wet weather lately had them longing for the nearest town and a dry hotel and saloon. They were unfamiliar with the area, unfortunately, so did not know how close that town would be. Following the river seemed a wise choice at the time.

They moved their horses into an easy gait a hundred yards or so from the river bank. Soon the light rain began to fall, causing them to turn up their coat collars and tilt their hats forward to lose the water collecting in the brims. By early evening, after an afternoon of minimal conversation and general discomfort, Heyes began to realize that the horses were slowing down. He leaned over to look at his mount's hooves and realized with a start that each step taken caused the animal's feet to sink low into the gathering mud. He looked at the Kid's horse and noticed the same thing. Recognizing the possibility of trouble, Heyes informed his friend that it would be prudent to dismount and lead the horses. The Kid agreed.

Heyes led his horse by its reins, following the Kid, who was also on foot leading his horse. Their own feet sank into the mire with each step and they felt they could not stop moving for fear of losing their boots to the magnetic mud. Each step all four of them took made a hollow suction noise. Heyes and Curry were miserable, thinking only of their end destination. And not really watching where they were going.

Suddenly Heyes became aware of the Kid's horse side-stepping violently and breaking away from its owner. Heyes himself had his hands full with his own mount suddenly rearing and attempting to pull away from him, but he managed to hold the reins tight and calm the horse. Something had clearly spooked the animals.

Heyes looked quickly around but saw nothing amiss. He noticed the Kid's horse a few yards away, pawing the mud. He spoke in low tones to further calm the animals.

Then he spoke to his partner. "Kid, do you see anything that could have caused this?"

At first there was no answer. Then he heard the Kid answer, at ground level. "I think I have an idea."

Heyes looked both ways before he finally spotted his friend through the storm, which was getting harsher. Kid Curry was on the ground. But he was not sitting on the ground. His legs had disappeared and only his body from the waist up was visible.

Quicksand!

Exactly what Heyes had feared.

His first instinct was to panic, but he gratefully noticed that his friend, although sunk well into the quicksand, was not panicking. He chose to make light of the situation. "Why don't you wait 'til we get to a hotel? Bath water's cleaner, Kid."

Following his lead, the Kid quipped, "This hasn't exactly been my day, has it?"

"No, but . . . let's get you out of there." As he spoke, Heyes had noticed that the Kid was continuing to sink into the mire. Something had to be done, and quickly. The quips could come later.

Still holding his horse's reins with one hand, he extended the other hand to his partner, standing as close as he could to what he hoped was the edge of the quicksand. His hand was just out of reach, though. His fingertips graced the Kid's but there was no possibility of a grip, no matter how much each of them stretched. In addition, Heyes felt himself sinking in a bit, and only his panicking horse pulling backward was responsible for keeping him from going in further. He stepped back.

The Kid was beginning to realize he was sinking more quickly. The quicksand was now up to his chest. "Heyes, you've got to do something _now!" _The Kid began to beat at the mud with his arms.

"Stop it, Kid! That's the worst thing you can do!"

"Stop it, hell! I'm sinking! I can't get out! Do something!"

Heyes was well aware that the Kid knew better than to treat quicksand with disrespect. This panic in his partner's demeanor caused Heyes to begin panicking himself. He looked wildly around for something that could aid him. Not much was available. But there was one piece of driftwood that had most likely been lying in the mud for a very long time. Gratefully he picked it up and extended it to his friend.

The Kid could not reach it at first but used his strength to make a lunge and managed to just grab on to the end of the wood with his hand.

"Hang on, Kid, I'm going to pull you out. Just hang on." Heyes tried a couple of different grips on the wood before finding one that wasn't too slippery in the rain. He planted his feet to lower his body weight, ignoring the fact that his own feet were also sinking into the mire. It took most of his strength, but he leaned back slowly, securely hanging on to the wood. On his end, the Kid also kept his grip. Heyes was overjoyed to see his friend slowly but surely rising from the mud. There was a smile on the Kid's face, and . . .

SNAP!

. . . the wood broke in half.

Heyes fell backward and the Kid gasped as the recoiling mud flowed over his shoulder. The attempted rescue had done more harm than good. The Kid waved his arms as best he could. "Heyes!" he yelled. "Do something!" He beat at the quicksand's surface with the flat of his hand and with the small piece of wood. To no avail. Nothing he did stopped him from sinking further.

On the ground, Heyes watched with dismay as his mind quickly flew through all the options he could think of. He was stunned into inaction as he drew blank after blank. Again he looked wildly around for anything that would help. The relentless rain was widening the quicksand pool. They were alone. There were no more pieces of wood. There was nothing anywhere that wasn't mud or small patches of vegetation. Nothing anywhere would be of use. He reached out his hand again, but this time he was even further away from being able to touch his friend. Fearlessly, Heyes then tried stepping into the dark quagmire with one foot, reaching his hand once again. The Kid saw and stretched out his arm, but they were simply too far apart to connect. As Heyes felt his own foot being drawn in, he knew he had no choice but to pull it out. That action was slow and tedious and wasted precious time. When he looked again, the Kid was sunk in up to his chin.

Heyes's face was a mask of panic but the Kid's expression was of sheer terror. "Heyes!" he continued to yell, even as the mud entered his mouth. One arm was now completely buried beneath the surface and the other was grasping out in desperation, reaching for the rescue that did not come. The hapless short piece of wood lay on the surface.

"Kid! Kid!" As a last-ditch effort, Heyes threw his body across the quicksand, keeping his knees on more solid ground. In this position, he could just grace his friend's hair with his fingertips, but the Kid's hand was too far away to connect. He watched helplessly as the Kid's head began to sink beneath the surface and his hand clasped and unclasped at the air. Heyes pulled himself to his knees just in time before he too would succumb to the magnetic mud. The Kid's head bobbed up and down as he pulled with all his strength to keep his nose clear. It was obvious he was losing the battle.

Heyes jumped to his feet and looked wildly around again. He still saw nothing he could use as a tool. Suddenly his mind flooded with the obvious thought, and it was intolerable. Turning back to his friend, he shrieked "No!" at the same time as the Kid. It was the last thing the Kid said.

Then came the scream.

Then silence.

* * *

The rains had finally stopped by the time the cattle roundup job for Big Mac began. The sun occasionally peeking through the clouds offered a very welcome respite from the dire circumstances that had seemed to plague Heyes lately. He wanted only to immerse himself in the mindless repetitive chores of roping strays and heading them back to the herd as he and the rest of the hands moved the cattle to a distant grazing range.

At first, predictably, the very act of removing the rope from the saddle horn, uncoiling it, and throwing it with any kind of accuracy was an upsetting chore for Heyes. But having to repeat this very act several times each day somehow depersonalized it for him. After a while it became only what it was – the act of roping stray cows.

He was very good at it. All the other hands said so.

But the scream did not go away. The scream replaying itself in his head over and over was not something he could throw away like the rope. He still heard it often. Whenever there was a lull in his activity, or whenever he found himself daydreaming – there it was. The memory of the scream. And each memory was, he was sure, just as loud as the time he actually heard it. Certainly it was just as painful.

How could this ever have happened? Heyes re-lived that day over and over in an effort to find a way to plunge it deep down to the back of his mind. Each time he thought about the accident he thought of something he could have done differently to help his partner. Whether these things were true or not did not matter. Heyes was certain that he could have acted more hurriedly and could then have avoided . . . _the scream._

He found it difficult to remember who had actually screamed. He thought it was his friend, but now he wasn't so sure. It might have been he himself. The memory of the scream wasn't even the worst part. It was the silence afterward.

He remembered the Kid's feeble attempt at levity. _This hasn't been my day. _An understatement. It had been the worst day for either of them that Heyes could remember.

* * *

But the workdays provided good hard mind-numbing work and the evenings were pleasant enough, too. Each night Heyes engaged the hands in a few rounds of poker, winning most of the time but intentionally collecting very little money from men who had become new friends. The days and the evenings went well enough, but the nights – the nights when he was trying to sleep – those were the times that he kept hearing the scream over and over. He could not escape during those times and suffered afterward. His friends noticed and commented but he never told anyone what was bothering him. By the end of the drive he was very tired.

A couple of months later, after finishing the job for Big Mac, Heyes once again travelled in the same area by the accursed river. It wasn't accidental; he had decided he needed to encounter the scene of the catastrophe as a major step in his desire to stop hearing the scream. Over the weeks, he had heard it less often, but he did not want to hear it at all anymore. Perhaps if he had discussed it with someone else – anyone – the scream wouldn't have stayed around. But its repetition was a private agony that he did not share with anyone else. He was certain its repetition had something to do with the fact that he had not acted fast enough. He had been at fault. That intolerable thought would plague him the rest of his life, but he did not want the memory of the terrible scream to continue to reinforce it. Now in his mind he felt he could somehow magically end the scream by coming face to face with its hellish cause.

There was a caveat, of course. There was a chance that his encounter with the quicksand might backfire and embed the scream forever in his soul.

It was a chance he was willing to take. He felt strong now, after two months at the roundup job for Big Mac. And he felt at least partially healed; the scream was less frequent than before.

Than it had been right afterward.

Hence the desire to face his demon head on and exorcise it once and for all. The quicksand.

Heyes wadded the reins in his hands as he plodded on, heading for the river on the way back to Wyoming. He was implored to head northeast, to avoid the river altogether, but he had his mission firmly in mind and he intended to see it through. His destination, his purpose, his _need_, was deeply personal. He was intensely quiet, following his soul.

He knew when he was getting close more by the way he felt inside than by actually seeing the river. The feeling was not good. His stomach started to flutter and his throat tightened. Without realizing it, he kept a taut hold on the reins, even though the ground was dry and a surprise appearance of quicksand seemed unlikely. His horse felt his tension and became skittish. The day was beautiful, but Hannibal Heyes was completely unaware of the nice weather. His memory was taking him back to that fateful day, and in his mind it was raining and the ground was soft beneath his mount's feet.

His personal tempest kept him off balance but focused. His eyes darted left and right as he searched the ground for the site of the tragedy. He knew he was close. He_ felt_ it – felt it to the bone. The thought of finding the deadly quicksand was frightening. But not as frightening as not finding it.

It was only a few moments before he saw it.

He shuddered. It looked different somehow. The deep murky quicksand pool had shrunk to less than half the size he remembered. The surface was shiny and unfettered by debris. Absently Heyes wondered how many animals or – or anything else – had met their demise in this mire. This thought shook him to the core and startled him back to reality. He dismounted, allowing the reins to drop to the ground. His horse stayed in place, nothing to bother it on this day.

His jaw set firmly in place, he walked slowly toward the quicksand. He stood at the edge for a while, musing about the scream. He was hearing it now. It was loud, as loud as it had been when he had been here before. The same unbearable emotions that had washed over him before now returned in force. What kind of power did this quicksand have that it could produce such horrendous passion? Heyes was drawn closer in deadly fascination. He knelt down to the ground and leaned forward to remove his glove and put his hand in the quicksand.

It felt cool and satisfying at first, almost calming. For a short while, he tried to simply enjoy this feeling, tried to ignore the scream. Then, as he began to feel his hand being drawn inexorably into the mire, he pulled back suddenly.

This was the power of quicksand. The power to draw in and destroy. The power to change your life forever, and not for the better.

Heyes remained on his knees and ran his hand gently along the surface. Now he was safe, distant from the destructive powers. He allowed his mind to wander, intentionally permitting the images of that terrible day to filter to the surface of his memory.

He remembered the decision he and the Kid had made to follow the river. He remembered how uncomfortable they had been in the driving rain. He remembered their virtual lack of conversation due to their discomfort. He also remembered, happily, how content he had been to simply be with someone he cared deeply about. Conversation was not necessary. Their discomfort in the weather was one of the many things they shared.

Then came the unexpected movements of the horses, reactions to something Heyes had not seen at first. When he did notice his friend sunk deeply into the quicksand, he recalled (unhappily now) that his first reaction had been levity. Perhaps if he had reacted appropriately and expediently, the Kid might not have had to . . . suffer . . .

Now the memories were becoming very painful. Heyes made an effort to get to his feet, but his strong emotions were overriding his strength. He abandoned the effort and remained on his knees, forcing himself to continue remembering.

He was fairly certain he made several attempts to save the Kid, some of which put his own life in mortal danger. He remembered the branch breaking, he remembered that there had been nothing else to hold on to.

Most of all, he remembered how desperate he had been to find something – anything – that would help them. The rain had kept falling and the land had been barren and he had been frantic in what he had perceived as a hopeless situation.

Then the look of sheer terror on the Kid's face came back to him. By now the scream was filling his head but he forced himself to continue remembering. He wrapped his arms around his body, leaned forward, and closed his eyes. It was the look on the Kid's face that haunted him the most. The look in the Kid's eyes, eyes that stared at him with unfilled expectations. The eyes of his dearest friend, the friend who was about to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. A strong involuntary shudder shook his body. He placed his hands over his ears because the scream was so loud.

And now he remembered the real scream. It had been the Kid, he was sure of it now. He hadn't thought about it since it happened out of fear, in spite of all the times he had heard the echoes in his head. But now he knew – the Kid had screamed in fear as he saw his life slipping away. His hands still covering his ears, Heyes shook his head in an effort to shake the picture of the Kid's terrified face.

But still he forced himself to remember. The next thing that happened was the worst thing of all – his partner's head slipped beneath the surface. Heyes remembered being mostly immobile up to that point. But when he saw the friend he loved so much slip away from him, he knew that he could not simply watch. He remembered, now for the first time, how he had suddenly rallied. How suddenly several improbable ideas of rescue had occurred to him at once. He remembered wondering if any of them would work, if any of them would be in time.

He remembered running through the mud to his horse, grabbing the rope he was to use on his job from the saddle horn, and throwing the loop toward the quicksand. He remembered how tenuously grateful he had felt when he had been able to rope the Kid's upraised hand with the first try. He had still acted frantically when he had looped the other end of the rope around the saddle horn and led the horse quickly away from the quicksand. He remembered turning back to see the Kid's body safely being pulled from the mire. Running to his friend, he fell to his knees and felt for a breath. At first there was none. He remembered frantically brushing the mud from the Kid's face and mouth and nose and pushing on his chest and back to try to remove the rest of the mud. He recalled the heartbreak he felt as there was no response at first. And how these feelings pushed him to work harder.

And then came the good memory – the Kid started coughing! Coughing and breathing! The rain had helped to awaken him. And Heyes had a memory of himself crying and hoping the rain would help camouflage his weakness.

In a moment the Kid was able to talk but was weak and disoriented. Heyes remembered helping him to mount up on his horse and leading the two horses away. Away from the quicksand! To the safety of Big Mac's ranch, many miles away.

The memories, although no longer painful, stopped abruptly when Heyes felt a hand on his shoulder. He heard the words, "Are you all right?"

He hesitated before responding, wishing to provide an honest answer. He turned to see the man standing next to him. Heyes searched his own soul for answers. In an instant he had all the information he needed. The deep fondness etched into the man's face, his hand resting on Heyes's shoulder, were all Heyes needed to feel.

He got slowly to his feet and stared at the quicksand for a long moment before responding. Then he turned to his friend, the friend who had almost died, the friend whose life had been in his hands, the friend whose tortured scream had reverberated through his head again and again. He knew he would not be able to explain to his friend what he was feeling. But he could still answer.

Heyes wrapped his arms around his friend and felt him hugging back. "It's all right now, Kid."

The scream was gone forever.

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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